KDE4 fails to start in fresh -current install

Hi all -

OK, so I tried KDE4.x on my -current box when it was still tucked in /testing. It didn't work for me then, I thought maybe I had b0rked something up upgrading from 3.5, and decided I'd wait until it made its way into the main tree.

I recently did a Bad Thing and wound up having to reinstall Slack from scratch. So of course I now had KDE4 again ... and when I try to start it I see essentially the same behavior I saw before: I get the lovely splash screen, then when the thing is finished loading in, the screen changes to a quite hideous and striated display where everything is squished over to the left side of the screen. I can move the mouse pointer around for about 5-10 seconds and then the whole thing freezes solid.

Based on another post I saw here (I can't seem to dig it up again), I took a look at /var/log/messages and lo! there is a slew of this in there:

Mar 20 19:18:01 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.7" (uid=1000 pid=20534 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member="Introspect" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2746 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))
Mar 20 19:18:01 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.7" (uid=1000 pid=20534 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member="Introspect" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2746 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))
Mar 20 19:18:01 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.7" (uid=1000 pid=20534 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member="Introspect" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2746 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))

I also briefly scanned dmesg output and I saw a couple of anomalous lines, but I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether there is any connection. If anyone knows what I should look for there (or whether I should look there at all), I'd be happy for any guidance.

Perhaps this laptop (Dell Inspiron 4100, PIII 100MHz) is just too old to run KDE4? 3.5 ran fine on it.

Thanks,

Glenn

I am having the same issue on a newer machine that is very capable, so I don't know if it is related to that. There is another thread about it that people have given some tips, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

Originally Posted by chexmix Based on another post I saw here (I can't seem to dig it up again), I took a look at /var/log/messages and lo! there is a slew of this in there: Mar 20 19:18:01 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.7" (uid=1000 pid=20534 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member="Introspect" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2746 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes ")) ...

I found the post I was thinking about above, and applied RWorkman's fix to /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf, but I am still getting some KDE4-related dbus messages like the one above. And trying to start KDE4 has the same result as before.

This is not exactly a deal-breaker since I can still run KDE4 apps from, say, XFCE (which is nicer to my old machine), but I'd still be interested to know why KDE4 isn't working for me.

Quite interesting, I have never got error messages like that since I applied RWorkman's hal.conf and add myself to some groups.

Oh, have you add yourselves to some groups? here is mine:

$ groups
users daemon audio video cdrom messagebus haldaemon plugdev power

I just tried the new hal.conf and adding myself to those groups and rebooted and I still get the same dbus error messages and can't login to kde.

OK. Grissiom, I added myself to the same groups as you. I no longer get as many dbus messages when attempting to start KDE4. In fact I only get two, but they are followed by a segfault, which (I am guessing) is why my machine totally freezes:

Mar 21 14:36:34 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.12" (uid=1000 pid=3496 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.CPUFreq" member="SetCPUFreqGovernor" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2814 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))
Mar 21 14:36:34 catbutt dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.12" (uid=1000 pid=3496 comm="kded4 ") interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement" member="SetPowerSave" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=2814 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))
Mar 21 14:37:03 catbutt kernel: X[3445]: segfault at 1a4 ip 08184e7a sp bfc9b270 error 4 in Xorg[8048000+186000]

I also noticed that I got the following when I tried to start konsole from an xterm where I was logged on as root (no idea whether this has relevance):

<unknown program name>(3062)/: KUniqueApplication: Cannot find the D-Bus session server

<unknown program name>(3061)/: KUniqueApplication: Pipe closed unexpectedly.

Finally, here is a crappy cell phone shot of what my frozen KDE4 screen looks like. You can't really see the vertical striations, but the squishing of everything over to the left is easy to see:

http://burningc.freeshell.org/images/KDE4screen.jpeg

So, yeah, I wish I knew how to troubleshoot this. I guess I will try Googling "error 4 in Xorg" next.

Thx,

GB

Hmm , so we have two problem here.... At first I have to admit that I am not a guru and my way of solving problems is "try-and-fault"....

So go ahead. What video card and driver are you using? Can you run glxgears in other DE successfully? I'm using ATI X1150 with open source driver and the support is poor... If I do a lot of OpenGL the X could freeze too.... If this is your case, open ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc when KDE is _not_ running, find the following section in it:

[Compositing]
AnimationSpeed=2
Backend=OpenGL
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true
GLDirect=true
GLMode=TFP
GLTextureFilter=1
GLVSync=true
HiddenPreviews=5
XRenderSmoothScale=false

change the Backend to XRender and Enabled to false. It may help you a bit. In addition, you may post your /var/log/X.0.log to look for more help.

OMG. Fortunately I burnt -current the day before yesterday on a DVD. So I can continue installing Slackware with KDE-3.5. :-D

Odd, my ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc doesn't look like that at all ... it looks like this:

[$Version]
update_info=kwin_focus2.upd:kwin_focus2,kwin.upd:kde3.0r1,kwin.upd:kde3.2Xinerama,kwin_focus1.upd:kw in_focus1,kwin3_plugin.upd:kde3.2,kwin_on_off.upd:kwin_on_off

[Desktops]
Name_1=
Name_2=
Name_3=
Name_4=
Number=4

... and that's all.

what I did was: slackpkg update slackpkg upgrade-all slackpkg install-new slackpkg clean-system

you schould if upgrading to current do this first

slackpkg clean-system

well if i was you I would look for a stale socket or lock file. so do your self a favor and delete the in root or your user delete the

.xsession

and make sure you renamed or deleted your old

.kde

folder.
because if you do not do that kde will never work. it will try to load the old 3.5.10 and you guessed it error

Hi Drakeo,

There are a couple of these threads about ... think you might be quoting from one of them (?)

I should have been more explicit in the first post of this one: when I reinstalled, I did so from scratch and installed -current straight in. There was no upgrading from 3.5.10 -> 4.x.x, so (unless I'm missing something else, which is always eminently possible) I should have had no old .kde stuff laying around at all.

I'm keenly interested why I am getting the dbus errors I posted above, & why my kwinrc file doesn't have any of the stuff Grissiom referenced in it ...

seems I started another topic about the same problem:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...24-mar-715312/
the mods can close that one down

I do get into KDE and I can use it without problems (I haven't found them... yet)
I'm using it on an old pc so I don't have the compositing enabled.

in a terminal as root type pkgtool and run install scripts again let me know.

Hmm. This is confusing. I guess mah thread done got hijacked. ;^) Or redirected. If anyone has any tips for your humble OP, I'd appreciate 'em.

OK, OK, pelt me with rocks and garbage. I fixed this and it was ridiculously easy. I was looking in the wrong place(s) and missing the obvious one(s).

It was a mis-done xorg.conf file. I reconfigured X and KDE4.2.1 now works happily.

Bad day. But this at least ended happily. Thanks all for your patience.

GB